Conference vmszoo::rc

1292.0. "trade show reports" by AKRON::RATASKI (Veni, Vidi, Vomui) Tue Apr 09 1991 11:53

Finally.... I have some time to write this.

Ted Urbanowicz and myself left at 7:00 from Akron to travel to the Toledo 
show. It took a little over 2 hrs, which put us in Toledo about 15 minutes
after the show opened. We parked in downtown Toledo and walked (even 
though there were shuttle buses) across the Maumee river to the arena.

First impression - reminds me of the Dayton HAMvention on saturday 
morning. If you can't relate to that - how 'bout 20,000 people trying to 
fit onto the floor of a sports arena. Hardly any shoulder room, let alone
elbow room to move about. Also, this was a real nice day here in Northern
Ohio, it got up to about 80. The result was lotsa people, relatively small
area, and 80 degree day.... HOT!

Ted and I started going through the arena part of the vendor displays. 
Here's a partial list of biggies that were there:

ACE R/C				Aerospace Composite Products	
Airtronics
AMA				Balsa USA
Bob Dively Models		Bob Holman Plans
Bob Shattleroe Landing Gears	Bob Violett models
Byron Originals			Carl Goldberg Models
Chevron Model Products		Composite Aircraft Engineering
Coverite			Cox Hobbies
Dave Brown Products		Dave Platt Models
Davey Systems			Du-Bro Products
Duracraft			Dynaflite
Eastern Tool & Supply		Edjer
Eldon J Lind co.		Fiberglass Master
Fourmost Products		Futaba Corp of America
GM Precision Products		Gater R/C Products
Graupner			Great Planes Model  both MFG & Dist
Harry Higley & Sons		Hitec R/C USA
Hobby Lobby			Hobby Dynamics
Hobby Shack			House of Balsa
IMAA				Impact Engineering
ISC International Trading (old world Engines)
J'Tec				Jet hanger Hobbies
Jet Model Products		Jomar
K&B Manufacturing		Klotz Special Formual Products
Kraft Midwest			Loctite
LSF				McDaniels R/C 
Micro-X				Midwest Products
Model Rectifier Corp		Ohio Superstar
Pacer Tech			Petit Paint (Hobbypoxy)
Quadra Aero (Klaus Novak)	R/C Modeler Magazine
Robart				Robbe
Robinaire			Rossi USA
Royal Products			Scale Model Research
Scale Plans and Photo Service	See Temp
Sermos R/C connectors		SIG
Sonic-Tronics			SR Batteries
Sullivan			T&D Fiberglass Specialties
Technopower			Top Flite
Tower Hobbies			Walt Moucha Models
Wendell Hostetler Plans		Windsor Propeller co.
Yellow Aircraft

There were many more - well over 200. Including the major magazine 
publishers that were passing out current copies of their wares. They 
included RC Model Builder, Flying Models, Model Airplane News, R/C Report,
and R/C Model World (Great Britain).

We meet Carl Tulanko from the Cincinnati office at 11:00 and talked for
a few minutes and then went our separate ways. 

After lunch the crowd thinned quite a bit and the my buying (frenzy?) 
started. I picked up custom sprung landing gear for my Balsa USA Flybaby 
Bipe from Bob Shattleroe - He does real nice work, A 1/16, 1/8, & 3/16 wire 
bender from Harry Higly, a set of plans (discounted) for a 1/4 Albatros DVa 
from Jim Pepino of Scale Plans and Photo Service - he also threw in the 
3-views and details sheets for free. A bottle of the NEW just announced ZAP-O
from Pacer. This stuff is ZAPs odorless CYA (thought I'd try it). A couple
of Uprights (building aids) from The House Of Balsa. Renewed my IMAA 
membership and purchased an IMMA hat. Bought a Tee-Shirt with the F3B team
logo on it from LSF (I liked the way it looked and the money goes to 
support the F3B team). And lastly... A Phaeton II from Balsa USA - the
price was right and I wanted a small bipe to futz with.

Ted only bought a catalog from Scale plans and Photo service. (He's new to
the hobby and is researching things before he commits himself [ I also think
his wife would skin him alive if he bought anything expensive] ).

I really wanted to buy a JR X347 but the only place I saw them was at the
Hobby Dynamics booth. I found out later who was selling them, but alas I 
had already spent more than I had planned.

We went through the Swap Shop... What a mad house, what a lot a junk, and no
I didn't see anything I wanted.

We packed up an left about 3:00 and walked (big mistake... we were really 
tired) back to the parking deck. We promptly left and arrived back in Akron
about 5:45 (stopped for dinner on the way).

New things that I saw....

ISC international Trading company (old World Engines) had a ASP .65 four 
stroke on display. They said that they were going to have them in the fall
for distribution. It looks just like an OS 4stroke.

Royal had a display rack with hundreds of servos for sale. They had a spot 
for their new MAXI 1/4 scale servo and had a show special price (4/$90)
listed on the rack but no servos. I asked and the sales person said that 
they didn't come in time for the show but they would be happy to take my
money and ship them to me when they came in (no I didn't do it!).

ACE had their MICRO PRO 800 on display and gave a demo. Looks nice.

Airtronics had their Infinity 600's on display.

Pacer had their newly announce ZAP-O which is supposed to be oderless and
have the consistancy of their gap filling (ZAP-CA+? I forget) standard CYA.
I bought some - more later after I use it.

The neatest thing I saw was at Balsa USA's display. They had their 1/3rd 
scale cub on display. Nice plane. They also had a new "complete kit" like
the cub. It was a Stinson bipe. I don't know the model Stinson, but it was
really a nice looking job. It was displayed without any covering and comes
like the cub with complete hardware and whatnot. The show price on this 
critter was (are you sitting down?) $599.00. I'm sure that it will be 
higher later. They seemed to discount all their kits at the show and 
had most of them right at their display. Give them money and they passed
you a kit. The cub was being sold for $349.00 - thats $50 off of the normal
price. Thats why I bought the Phaeton II. I got it for $34.00. Slight 
discount, No-tax, No shipping.

Will I go again? You bet! Now that I know what to expect, I think I can
get a list things I REALLY need before I go.

Next year they are moving (after 37 years) from the Toledo Sports arena to 
Seagate Center (the Toledo Convention Center) in downtown Toledo. Looks 
like the Weak Signals Club decided it was time for more room.

Next years dates are April 3, 4, 5, 1992. 

Maybe we'll see some more DECRCMers there.

Probably the best place for this:

If you look in the August 1993 District I column you'll see my daughter 
and I in our booth at the New England R/C Model and Hobby show held 4/30-5/2 
in Wilmington MA.

    Was that the Don Kraft Willmington memorial column?.
    
    I saw you in there, We used it to identify you to Charlie Nelson at the
    BoD meeting.
                                                                          
    Hey Jim, now yer famous!.
    
    E.

This past weekend I travelled 600 miles south to Virginia Beach to have a booth
at this show. Since it was a first annual event, my expectations were low, but
perhaps not low enough. Hopefully the locals will realize that this show exists
and save some of their hobby money to spend and kick off the building season
right.

The show was well run and the exhibitors were well looked after but the
"crowds" never materialized.

Highpoints:

Meeting Herk Stokley in person. Herk is now helping Michael Selig evaluate his
test cores and getting a handle on the translation from coordinates to test
models.

Flying an R/C Blimp. I was amazed by the 8-10' blimp that was inflated saturday
night. I got talking to the guy and found that we had a lot of non-R/C related
similar interests. Well he was being badgered in front of my booth with
questions so he handed me the Tx and stopped watching. I got to fly it all over
the hall from in my booth. Later he changed from propeller mode to "swim" mode
by putting a fish type tail on it with an oscillator circuit that basically
convertted it into a gallopig ghost. This was enough to make it go and we had
more fun flying in this mode. I now have one of his smaller bags for my
personal use 8^)

Next stop WRAMS 96. I have my invite already.

Jim